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This appears in a pre-2010 issue of Down in the Dirt magazine. Saddle-stitched issues are no longer printed, but you can requesting it “re-released” through amazon sale as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book! Email us for re-release to order.

Conversation on Route 23 North, November 1987

B W Mayer

He leans on me like a rusted bicycle,
Tires flat against the weathered south wall
Of a lonesome, abandoned barn
Slumps into the rear seat of his old Ford
Station wagon, no longer capable of riding
Shotgun in the only car he has ever known
Images reflected in the rear view mirror
Are not always larger than they may appear
A small figure, gaunt...thin...weak
The bluff has lost its long battle against
A sea that is unrelenting and unforgiving

There is no apprentice program
No manual with appendix, numbered illustrations
That touches on the passage of responsibility
I did not recognize the need for silence
My feeble attempt to shoot the breeze
Was more for my own benefit than it was for his
I understand that now
I spoke of realty, the acres we had our eyes on
Now, his eyes were tired and trapped
Locked in that hollow gaze of regret
There, in a whisper, close to tears
I strain to listen

There has been a change of plans

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